Go board game with generalized topology and rules

ABSTRACT

A Go board with generalized topology and rules are presented. The board topology is generalized to include concave corner points, vacuous areas, two-dimensional grids over the surface of three-dimensional objects, grids consisting of three-dimensional meshes, a random graph, and temporarily invisible areas of the Go board. The Go playing rule is also generalized by allowing a player to place multiple stones, and by assigning different scores to different points on the Go board.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] An oriental board game, “Go or Baduk,” is centuries old and originated in China. It is very popular in Korea, Japan and China, and is becoming popular in Europe and America in modem era. In a Go game, a square board on which a 19-by-19 rectangular grid is drawn and two sets of stones, black and white, are used. Two players decide which color of stones to take, and alternately place the stones at the intersections on the grid. The player with the black stones plays first.

[0002] The object of the game is to gain territory by surrounding various areas of the board with his/her stones. An area of intersection points on the grid completely enclosed by black (white) stones is counted as points for the players using black (white) stones, each intersection point being one point. Two stones of the same color are considered connected if they are adjacent on the grid. Each intersection point is adjacent to four neighbor points except for the points on the edge (3 neighbors) and comers (2 neighbors) of the board. If a stone or a group of connected stones is completely surrounded by the stones of the opposite color, it is considered captured and taken off the board. A captured stone is also counted as a point for the player who captures it. Whoever has more points at the end of the game wins. A complete rule of Go can be found in [1].

[0003] The topology of the Go board and the playing rules of Go game have been stable for centuries. There are many patents on the implementation details of software versions of the Go game, but the Go board topology and the playing rules themselves are essentially the same. The only known variant to the Go board is the size of the grid other than 19 by 19.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0004] Therefore, it is the object of this invention to offer generalizations and modifications of Go board topology and playing rules to make the game of Go much more interesting. The current Go board consisting of 19-by-19 rectangular 2-dimensional grid is generalized by modifying the topology of the grid, or graph in a more general term, to include concave comers, holes, non-rectangular graphs, graphs on the surfaces of 3-dimensional objects, and graphs in three or higher dimensional spaces. The playing rule is also generalized by designating predetermined or random areas as hidden areas visible to none or only one of the players, which are then made visible to both players at predetermined times, random times or at times when predetermined conditions are met during the game. The playing rule is also generalized by having each player to place a plurality of stones at each turn, a predetermined number of times, or at times when predetermined conditions are met during the game.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING

[0005] These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

[0006]FIG. 1 is a Go game at an early stage.

[0007]FIG. 2 is the Go game in FIG. 1 in the middle stage.

[0008]FIG. 3 is the Go game in FIG. 1 when completed.

[0009]FIG. 4 is a Go board with modified topology that includes concave corners.

[0010]FIG. 5 is a Go board with modified topology that includes holes.

[0011]FIG. 6 is a Go board with a hidden area that is possible to implement only in software.

[0012]FIG. 7 is a Go board on the surface of a three-dimensional object, where there is a hidden area for each player, namely, the vertical surface on the side of the middle tower opposite to each player.

[0013]FIG. 8 is a Go graph with a two-level grid, a simple three-dimensional topology.

[0014]FIG. 9 is a Go graph with a three-dimensional topology. The graph consists of the edges of hexagonal and rectangular blocks.

[0015]FIG. 10 is a Go graph with an arbitrary topology. The number of neighbors of the points on the graph varies from point to point.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0016] With the reference to the accompanying drawings, the present invention will now be described. A game of Go is shown at an early, middle and the finished stages in FIGS. 1, 2 and 3, respectively. As one can see, the current Go game is played by placing black and white stones alternatively at the intersection points on a 19-by-19 rectangular grid or graph. The areas enclosed by the black or white stones represent their respective territories, and each intersection point in the enclosed areas counts as one point in scoring.

[0017] The present invention improves upon the simplistic, current Go game by generalizing the topology of the Go board as well as the playing rules in several ways. The present invention modifies the Go board by including concave comer points as shown in FIG. 4, which has four such points, 41-44. This results in a variety of new moves at the concave points. The present invention also modifies the Go board to include vacuous areas, e.g., 51 and 52 in FIG. 5, that cause connection deficiencies among the stones, yet creating another way to increase intrigue of Go game.

[0018] The present invention also defines possible areas that are visible to none or only one of the players until a predetermined or random time during the game. In FIG. 6, for example, stones placed in Area 61 cannot be see by the player with the black stones, while stones placed in Area 62 cannot be seen by the other player until, say, the 100^(th) move. This particular version of Go game can be implemented more readily in software. On the other hand, the Go board with the graph laid on the surface of a three-dimensional geometry in FIG. 7 naturally defines areas that are not visible to each player unless the player moves around the board. FIGS. 8 and 9 illustrate fully three-dimensional Go graphs of the present invention that consist of the edges of square blocks or a mixture of square and hexagonal blocks. In the extreme, the present invention generalizes the Go graph to a random graph that has a varying number of neighbor points for each point on the graph. The stones are still placed on the intersection points of edges in the graph.

[0019] The present invention also generalizes the playing rules of the Go game in several ways. First, one or both players are allowed to take multiple turns at each turn, one or more predetermined times, when certain conditions are met during the game, or for a predetermined number of times during the game. For example, each player may be allowed to place two stones for a total of 3 times during the game. Or a player may be allowed to place 3 stones at once when he/she places his/her stones at all four corner points on the Go board in FIG. 1.

[0020] Second, the present invention may assign different scores corresponding to different points in the Go graph. For example, the graph points at the top of the middle block in FIG. 7 may be assigned a higher score than the rest of the points in the graph.

[0021] The advantage of the present invention is the greatly increased diversity and complexity of the Go game resulting from the generalization of the Go game board (or graph) and the generalization of the Go playing and scoring rules. Although the present invention is described with examples of preferred versions thereof, other vast variety of versions is possible by taking a different combination of the aforementioned features. The scope of this invention covers both hardware and computer software constructions, and shall not be limited by the specification specified above and the appended claims. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A two-dimensional Go board with a rectangular grid that includes a concave corner point;
 2. A two-dimensional Go board with vacuous areas, or holes, of arbitrary shapes that reduces the connectivity of stones;
 3. A two-dimensional Go graph that are laid on the surface of three-dimensional geometries;
 4. A Go graph consisting of two layers of two-dimensional graphs connected with vertical edges, making it a two-story graph;
 5. A three-dimensional Go graph consisting of three-dimensional meshes;
 6. A Go graph whose points and edges are generated randomly at the beginning of each game;
 7. A Go graph with special areas that are visible to none or only one of the players until a predetermined time, a random time or when certain conditions are met during the game;
 8. A Go game rule that allows a player to place multiple stones at each turn, at predetermined points in time during the game, for a predetermined number of times, or when certain conditions are met during the game;
 9. A Go game rule that assigns different scores to different points on the Go graph in a predetermined way, or by a set of conditions on the stone's positional relationships;
 10. A Go game with one or more features in claims 1-9. 